In memory of Ziggy and the Metatron

Last week the world was thrown into a mass outpouring of grief by the publicly sudden but privately less sudden deaths of two legends of the artistic community, David Bowie and Alan Rickman. I have been a long term fan of both of these men and so like many others spent last week a state of grief for two men I've never met. As I start to emerge from the David Bowie part of that grief (I've pretty much only listened to Bowie since hearing of his death) and start to process the second one of these great loses to not just the arts, but also to the world at large, I have reflected on a few things that struck me this week.

David Bowie and Alan Rickman had many things in common aside from the impact they had on music/movies/art and movies/theatre/writing respectively, and the fact they were the same age or died of the same awful disease. Both men hailed from working class English backgrounds. Both men by all accounts were genuinely lovely human beings- I've never heard a bad word about either of them in their interactions with fellow creatives or journalists or fans or everyone. Both men were very committed in their family relationships- Rickman was with the same women from his teen years to his death, and Bowie was with his second wife for over 20 years. Both men had an impact that echoed across generations as the public outpouring of grief I've seen ranged from teenagers through to people older than the men themselves. As I reflected though I wanted to emphasis two commonalities...

The importance of public arts funding

As I said both of these men were from working class backgrounds, which meant neither was from a family that could fund establishing an artistic career or attending a private arts college. In fact both men attended publicly funded arts schools. In an era where these are things of the past in many countries and where governments routinely cut arts funding, the legacy of these men in part emphasises the importance of government arts funding. Not to make their deaths a political topic, but without public arts funding we might be in a world with no Jareth the Goblin King or no Severus Snape (on the big screen anyway), and what a poorer world that would actually be.

 Privacy in a public world

We live in a world where day by day everyone shares everything on the web, but one of the biggest impacts of both of these deaths was how private they managed to be, especially in light of the level of cultural impact both men have. No-one outside a tight inner circle of friends and family knew either man was ill or that death was an imminent possibility. The public did not get stepped through their cancer journeys or to have a death bed vision of them down the lens of a smart phone. Maybe it was because they were men born in an age where privacy was more common and respected, but in their deaths, they showed that in the 24/7 social media whirlwind of the modern world, they reminded us that there are things that should be private. Families and friends of famous people have just as much right to private grief as do the families and friends of us common folk. Cancer in all its horrid manifestations is a drawn out and horrible illness, and since most of us have witnessed a loved one struggled through that journey, we can all understand that it is something you wouldn't want to invite the whole world to observe. I know it seems ironic to say this on a blog but there should be a space for the private and personal space in this world especially when sickness and death come to call. I am grateful that these two great men can reminding us of this, and I hope that the media and the broader public continues to respect the need to give their families and friends space to process and doesn't start trawling to find stories of how their last months were spent.

Those are the two commonalities that struck me, and the third thing that struck me was the interesting way in which the public interacts with the death of celebrities. As a society just as we don't do privacy well, we also in Western countries increasingly as awfully bad at dealing with death. We hide from it, we don't speak about it, and we try not to show weakness when faced with it by stifling our tears in public. However this is when we are dealing with personal death- the deaths of loved ones who others we speak to might not know. When a public figure dies, though we have never met them, the fact that we are admired their work and that they have inspired us or made us dream is something we share with hundreds of others. Having bottled our private griefs that others in the broader community may not share, we are hit harder by grief for people who shape our lives via popular culture but we have no personal relationship with. You could probably write a psychology thesis on this but I feel that the death of public figures sometimes gives the space to speak about death generally that society normally does not afford us, and what occurs is a distinct brand of grief unseen before the mid twentieth century. As many others spent last week in the same way that I did, listening to Bowie's music and watching Rickman's films, I know that there is definitely something more than trivial going on there. These men have been inspirations to hundreds (if not thousands of people) and it is one of these rare times where people across the world could agree that there is something profoundly sad and wrong about any death, and that each death should be mourned.

So from me, this is a brief thanks to these men. Firstly Alan Rickman...

I have been a fan of his work since I first saw the Ang Lee version of Sense and Sensibility as a teenager, and whilst I've seen the film he is perhaps known for to people my age (just breath, guys, I'm watching it...and by it I mean Die Hard... as I type). Though he is best known for the gravitas he brought to evil characters with his amazingly deep voice and flawless delivery but I actually most love his comedic turns. I know younger people will always remember him as Snape and older people as Hans Gruber but there is much more. So I thought I'd give a short recommend of Alan Rickman films that aren't Die Hard or Harry Potter... In fact, these are my top five Rickman films generally and count down.

5. Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy

Now Hitchhikers' Guide isn't a great adaptation of the book and I say this despite being a crazy fan of pretty much everyone in it, but there are one thing that the casting director could not have got more right. There are two characters out there that when I read the book I thought if they make a film of this and don't cast Alan Rickman, it wouldn't be a proper film of this book. One was Severus Snape (I read the other day that some Harry Potter fans thought he was miscast when the cast list was first announced and all I can say that these folk is, did you read a different book to me?!?!) and the other is Marvin the paranoid android from Hitchhikers' Guide. There is something about Rickman's voice that makes it ideal for the perpetually depressed Marvin.

4. Love Actually

OK this film is comedy but Rickman's character is not comedic. I love Love Actually but the Alan Rickman/ Emma Thompson story line just breaks my heart every time. Seriously I've seen it tonnes of times but the scene where he tries and fails to apologise for being a horrible husband and she replies by telling him that he has made "the life I led ridiculous" by cheating on her, I cry buckets of tears. Now that is mainly Thompson's performance, but it would be nothing if she wasn't playing off long time repeated co-star, Rickman. Rickman's character may be a useless husband in the film but Rickman makes him more than just a sleaze. Not to defend him but the character seems like a good boss- when it comes to Laura Linney's character that is, when it comes to his assistant...that's another matter (you don't sleep with staff!). Rickman manages to make it believable both that Harry is a supportive boss to Linney's character and simultaneously a deeply weak man who does something deeply stupid and wrong. One of Love Actually's strongest point is that a lot of its characters are flawed humans doing stupid things, and the Rickman/Thompson story line is the most believably real and has the least fairy tale ending.


3. Sense and Sensibility

Yes this is a comedy...haven't you read Austen? This is the movie that kicked off my love of Alan Rickman's work and it once again also features his Love Actually co-stars, Emma Thompson and High Grant. I remember watching it as a teen and thinking Colonel Brandon was very sweet but at the same time being horrified by the age difference between him and Marianne. When I read the book, I calmed down about the age difference (16 to 35 was pretty normal at that time) but when rewatching it this weekend, friends and I googled various things, and did the maths, Kate Winslet was 20 and Alan Rickman was 49 so I think I was right to be creeped out when I was a teenager (that said, oddly not creeped out as much nowadays). Colonel Brandon is the kind of character who risks being deeply dull (it is a criticism many lay at the feet of Sense and Sensibility) and it is why, more than any other Austen cad, I can understand why Marianne felt Willoughby was a preferable option. Rickman manages to get right past that with the stoicism he gives to the character, and I have to say whilst Brandon in the book is a tad boring, Brandon in this movie very attractive option (yes I know I'm talking about the man who would go on to play Snape).

2. Galaxy Quest

I watched this movie a lot when I was at uni- though I have to say I think I still have seen Love Actually more times and I definitely have seen the next film more times. This film about failed franchise stars who go from convention to convention, much in the vein of many people who starred in Star Trek, is one that enjoys mad nerd cult film status but is sadly underseen by others. Rickman plays Alexander Dane who was the Spock type character, and he is deeply hilarious as a theatrically trained actor who cannot get a role and has been reduced to a catch phrase- "By Grabthar's hammer, I will avenge you". That Rickman would go on to be a franchise star with his portrayal of Snape makes this performance even better.


 1. Dogma

Now some might think this a bit of a shameful guilty pleasure confession but I LOVE the films of Kevin Smith (pre Clerks 2- that was not great- and I've not watched the subsequent ones). Dogma  is one of my absolute favourite films of all time and Alan Rickman's droll portrayal of the Metatron is just perfectly pitched. If the voice of God is that slightly sarcastic, I'm fine with it. I could gush for hours about how amazing it is but I say just watch it (that said if you think sex jokes overly crash, a warning there are quite a few as this is Kevin Smith film after all).

So that is my thank you to Alan Rickman/recommendation of Alan Rickman comedies. Also I've now finished Die Hard and gosh it was AMAZING...it seems you all were right all along.


The next and bigger thank you is to David Bowie. Most people my age were introduced to Bowie one of two ways- by relatives who were into his music or by the movie, Labyrinth- and whilst I have relatives who are fans (particularly my older sister who even saw him in concert once... so jealous!), for me it was definitely the latter. Labyrinth has been one of my most loved films ever since I first saw it aged six or so, and long before I realised just how weird it is to combine a teen girl, a baby, animated owls, a sheepdog, muppets, and a grown man in very tight tights on the big screen (brilliant weird, but weird none the less). When I got into music as a teen, I discovered that almost every artist I loved (being all alt rock types as they were) listed Bowie as one of their biggest influences, and by the end of high school I had a vague familiarity with many of his hits and a quote from one of his songs scrawled across my school folder (it was the line from "Changes" that is the epigraph to Breakfast Club and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't mainly motivated by that film). As I've mentioned in previous blogs, most of my discovery of music that wasn't 90s alt rock/pop happened when I was at uni, and it was at uni that I truly feel in love with the music of David Bowie. As I listened, I understood what the bands I loved as a teen were talking about. They were shadows of what Bowie was (great shadows with great skills but still nothing on the original). Bowie's musical innovation, his constant reinvention, his questioning of societal norms (especially around gender), and his role as voice for the outsider, this is what modern bands could now merely aspire to because he had set the bar too high for them to comprehend. There is something in his music that I doubt we will see the likes of again. Personally for me, Ziggy Stardust is the height of perfection when it comes to an album of any type of music (along with Sergeant Pepper)...you can keep your Mozart and even your Beethoven, I would rather spend time with a skinny English man in flares.

The irony of just the sheer scale of Bowie's genius is that rumour has it we almost never got to hear it. From what I hear tell, when he came to pitch Space Oddity to his record company, they were at a loss as to what to do with it. They saw Bowie as a solo artist was trying to sell them what was primarily a folk album (which is in part true of some of the tracks) with a very strange and different title track that was not folk but was about an astronaut and was not like anything they had heard before. What a mercy for us all that they took a gamble on him...

I do have five tracks for you, including my two favourites (cannot pick five favourites as three of those would change any time I was asked), but I also want to say, if you have never listened to the music of David Bowie, do yourself a favour...buy a copy of Ziggy Stardust and mark aside a chuck of time this weekend to have a listen and prepare to have your musical life as you know it turned up side down. Also since I'm not listing anything off it below, I also have to say here, if you are Bowie fan (or even if you aren't) and you haven't bought a copy of Black Star yet, GET a copy! His last album is truly beautiful and amazing, and also really haunting when you consider the lyrics in the light of his illness and imminent death.

So five tracks to celebrate Bowie....

"Within you" from the Labyrinth soundtrack

I adore all of the music in Labyrinth and this also is a shout out to where I first encountered the genius of David Bowie.... also because this section of the film looks like a film clip when nope it is just a regular bit of the film.

"Under Pressure"- technically Queen feat. Bowie but both have featured it on greatest hits albums and perform it alive

Since Queen are also one of my favourite all time musical artists, I would be remiss not to include this. Also it is AMAZING!

"Life on Mars"

This completes the three songs that if you asked me another day I may not list as favourites. I love these three but I love also "Changes" or "Heroes" or "China Girl" or "Man who sold the world" (actually is there a better opening riff to any song ever then the one to "Man who sold the world"?), or "Golden Years" or "Space Oddity" or the list goes on and on... my two all time never changing David Bowie songs which you MUST listen to...

"Ashes to Ashes"

 
OK so this film clip is deeply odd to say the least and disturbing if like me you aren't a massive fan of clowns, but the song.... There is some much here. Dreams that have shattered, heroes that are failures. It is pretty much a motto for a generation of gen Xs right there. Also listen to it and just feel the power of the influence of Bowie's music on those who followed.

"Suffragette City"

It started live as a B side on Ziggy Stardust and it now rightly has found its way onto many of the Greatest Hits of Bowie albums out there. My all time favourite Bowie song...I just love everything about it!

So my thank you to Alan Rickman and to David Bowie for the amazing things that they did for the arts, and to quote the character that generations will remember Alan Rickman for, when will the influence of these men be felt? "Always"

Films in 2015...what a year it was...

So it is the end of the year and that means I have a couple of weeks off work to be bored and now that I've read the newest Franzen (it is brilliant but long term readers would now that was almost certainly what I was going to say), watched several films, finished season 3 of The Newsroom and the miniseries The Honourable Woman, now that my holidays are over time for me to give you my list of films that I think are worth seeing (or not worth seeing) that were released in 2015. I saw my last 2015 film on the last day of 2015 (more on that later) and my last first time film of 2015 a few days before that (it isn't getting a mention in more detail later. It was Suffragette and I'm sad I didn't like it more. It was good but by no means great). So the films:

 15. Song of the Sea

On the night of the birth of Saoirse, her mother disappears leaving Ben (her older brother), Saoirse, their father Connor and their dog Cú alone on this island where Connor is the lighthouse keeper. Skip forward six years and Connor is deeply depressed by the continued absence of his wife, Saoirse does not speak, and Ben deeply resents his little sister for "ruining" the life he had with his parents and Cú before she was born (conversely she hero worships him). The island on which they live is rumoured to have been home to selkies (people who can turn themselves into seals) and one night Saoirse finds a seal skin coat that was her mother's and walks into the water following the call of the seals (you guessed it she is a selkie but that isn't a spoiler, it is briefly revealed in the above trailer). After that night, the children's grandmother decides it would be better for the children to live in the city and after she takes them there the magic and mythical hi-jinks really begin. This film is from the same studio that made The Book of Kells a few years back which is a film I'm deeply sad to have missed at the cinema as it is supposed to be amazing. Song of the Sea was Oscar nominated for best animated feature in 2015. It is stunning. It is steeped in Irish mythology and is some of the most gorgeous animation I've seen from a non Japanese film in years. The music is also very effective and the vocal acting is very good (more Irish voices on screen I say). After last year's Calvary, this marks a two year in a row appearance for Brendon Gleeson, who was also very good in Suffragette, in my random countdown (that said he hasn't had as good a year in my books as his son has but more on that later). This all said I'm not certain this was actual in distribution in Australian cinemas yet (I saw it at the Sydney Film Festival) so sadly you may have to wait for a possible 2016 release to see it- it was released most everywhere else in 2014 or 2015, but since it isn't for sale on DVD yet, I assume it is coming here late.

14. Joy

Joy is a fictionalised biopic of the woman who invented the magic mop- fictionalised in the sense that the main woman who was the primary basis of the film was much older than Jennifer Lawrence who plays the title character and also the film actual combines the story of several similar women even if it is mainly based on one. Joy (Lawrence) is divorced mother of two who lives in a run down house with her soap opera obsessed house bound mother, her grandmother, her two children, and in the basement her ex-husband and her father (long since divorced from her mother). As a child, she had been a creative, inventive type, but now as the only bread winner in her family, she is wasting her intelligence on dead end jobs. She comes up with an inventive new mop and film chronicles her challenges in manufacturing and selling this product, ultimately using telemarketing in its early days. This was one of my final 2015 films and it is primarily Jennifer Lawrence that got it on to this list. Just a few years ago, I felt the jury was still out on Lawrence despite seeing all of the Hunger Games and recent X-Men films, but then I saw a previous David O. Russell and Lawrence collaboration and completely changed my mind. That film was American Hustle and her performance in that blew me away as she stole every single scene she was in from much more seasoned performers. Joy is her film and every other actor is merely supporting her. Lawrence knocks it out of the ball park and the support she receive is solid. The director/actor partnership she has with David O. Russell (I refuse to use the term "muse" as I feel it does demean Lawrence a bit) is working swimmingly. It is also generally an important story for woman who might feel that they have no opportunities to get ahead.


13. Spring

 
Spring is the story of a young American man who after the death of his mother packs up and heads to Europe where he meets a beautiful but mysterious woman with a dreadful secret. Especially as it is a horror film I can't tell you more than that. This is a shout out to my love of B Grade horror and also sadly is the closest I get to a film not in English as it is not just American but is also co-produced by several European countries (I have been very bad at catching non English films in 2015). It doesn't have the high scale production values of most films on this list but the performances are good, the Italian coastline is beautiful, and the plot is actually quite original. I watch quite a bit of B Grade horror and one of its defining tropes is that it isn't highly original. This walks that line between A and B Grade tidily with one of the most unpredictable reasons for the horror I've seen in a long time. I normally can pick these things but this was completely out of the blue. It is also at times very funny and very sweet. The film did not get an official cinematic release in Australia in 2015, I saw it at the Sydney Film Festival, but it came out on DVD in September. It is unfortunate that B Grade often doesn't get a proper theatrical release as this film was quite spectacular on the big screen if only for its location. 

 12. The Imitation Game

2015 was the year of the biopic (there are two on my countdown alone- also a film that verges on biopic- and I saw several more). This is the story of Alan Turing who was the man partly responsible for cracking the Enigma code and thereby winning the Allies the Second World War. To say that Turing was a computer and mathematical genius is an understatement to the extreme but he was gay and this was 1940s England, a fact which coupled with his high level of social awkwardness made him the scorn of colleagues and made his life very difficult in that time. The Imitation Game was one of two films about a genius without the greatest of social skills released in 2015 (the other being The Theory of Everything which would have been about number 17 on this list if I went that low). It was also the first film I saw in 2015. Despite all of the issues people had with this film (mainly with the fact that the film took Turing's social awkwardness almost to level of mental illness- I would agree to a degree with this concern), the performances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley (I actually already mentioned admiring her performance in this in 2014's countdown), and a solid supporting cast of many British actors I admire were outstanding. More importantly, it was time Turing's story was told on the big screen and known by a broader audience, especially the poignancy of the fact he committed suicide after over a year of chemical castration treatment (the film does not say this but he was off the castration medicine at the time of his suicide) following a conviction for indecent acts (i.e. for being gay in an era where it was illegal) and with minimal public recognition for his work. For the modern audience, it provides both a window into the mind of an unmistakable genius in a field few people understand and signal of how wrong society can be.

11. Infinitely Polar Bear

The eldest of two sisters narrates the story of her family in the 1970s. Her mother, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), met her father, Cam (Mark Ruffalo), when they were both working at a radio station, and very early in the relationship Cam told his future wife that he is bipolar but she declares at that point that it is the 1960s and everyone is a little crazy. Jump forward many years and the couple has two primary school aged daughters and is on the poverty line as Cam can't work and then Cam has a complete breakdown. Maggie decides that she needs to improve her family's situation and starts applying for business graduate degrees, and after being accepted to a college in New York, she asks Cam to take solo care of the two girls in Boston whilst she studies despite the fact they separated after the breakdown and that was only 18 months earlier. The remainder of the film focuses on Cam's attempts to raise the girls whilst combating his illness. The film's title sounds bizarre- it comes from the younger girl's combining of bi-polar and manic depressive- and sadly this film got very limited release and next to no audience in Australia which is a mighty shame. Mark Ruffalo (who was also outstanding in Avengers: Age of Ultron- shockingly no comic books film on the list this year and it was the best one- and once again two years in a row on my countdown for an actor but I pretty much love him in everything) is OUTSTANDING in this. You don't see much of the depressive side of Cam's illness but Ruffalo plays the mania more realistically than I've ever seen it portrayed on screen. The performances by Saldana (another repeat actor from 2014) and the two young girls are also solid. I applaud Maya Forbes (a rare female writer/director, making her directorial debut) for the bravery in bringing what seems a very personal film to the screen as the film is based on her childhood and her father's illness. Ruffalo has been justifiably nominated for a Golden Globe and I hope he wins though I think the film is too old for that. What I hope more is that he gets an Oscar nomination as the film might return to cinemas if that happens, if not it is on DVD now.

10. The Martian

In the not too distant future, manned missions to Mars are a thing. On one such trip, an accident occurs and Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is left behind with limited supplies and no prospect of rescue for years. He "sciences the shit out of it" and manages to grow potatoes and reach out to contact NASA, whilst NASA workers struggle to think of how/if they can save him, and his mission team heads back home unaware that he is alive. After Interstellar last year, I was nearly ready to declare the serious big budget science fiction film a thing of the past. I felt Interstellar seriously overreached itself and the science in that film was a joke to say the least so I didn't understand why so many people loved it. That being the case and Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain both having been in Interstellar (I do like them both normally but it was just the correlation of serious sci-fi and these actors so soon), I was skeptical to say the least when it came to The Martian but it turned out that was unwarranted. Firstly, the science was better than Interstellar, for a start a lot of it was accurate, and whilst I was hoping another film this year would drive the kids to be scientists (it wouldn't as it wasn't a good science film more on that to come), this will actual be the film for that (go you future generations of botanists, agricultural scientists, engineers, and physicists, go!). Secondly, the script was very smart and I'm very happy to see Drew Goddard who I've been a fan of over the many years of his collaborations with Joss Whedon, and other TV work given the reigns of a big budget intelligent film after the more low budget Cabin in the Woods (pretty much my favourite B grade horror film) and the great but could be better World War Z- I'm hoping he gets some awards for it. Thirdly, it is the best Ridley Scott film in almost two and a half decades (I didn't mind Gladiator but Thelma and Louise was the last one I truly enjoyed and that was made in 1991) and I like that the man who behind Alien and Blade Runner is back directing a decent sci-fi film. Fourth and finally, the cast is chock full of actors whose work I love but most importantly this film belongs to Matt Damon who is solo on screen for most of his scenes and it might well and truly be time for him to take home one of the more significant awards for his acting (this would be more deserved to my mind than his awards for writing Good Will Hunting).

9. Max Mad: Fury Road

A plot description is hard on this because I have to admit this is actual my first excursion into Mad Max land (Mel Gibson creeps me out to say the least) but I'll try. In a post apocalyptic landscape, Max (Tom Hardy) is captured by the War Boys so they can use his blood to enhance their limited lifespan. Max is linked to Nux (Nicholas Hoult). When one of the clan's drivers, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) goes off course and it turns outs she has taken the clan leader's "wives" (read sex slaves) with her, the War Boys are sent to chase her down. Nux ties Max to the front of his car as his "blood-bag" and they catch her, and Max ends up assisting her as she fights both the War Boys and several other clans. Action with a side of action and then more action! And it was made in Australia, directed by an Australian, and stars a lot of Australians albeit in minor roles! I initially had zero interest in this film because of my previous lack of Mad Max interest but then men's rights groups got up in arms and if there is anything that is sure to get me to watch something, it is men's rights groups hating it. This film runs on pure adrenaline and it is an unstoppable thrill ride. The most important thing about this film is its treatment of gender. Theron is the star of the film, though Hardy and Hoult was both very good, she is the one who pack the biggest punch both physically and emotionally. You can easily see that Furiosa could have been a male character so it is a character where gender is not of the first importance. This is further re-enforced by the lack of romance between Furiosa and Max which shows she is not there as a pretty face or to be man-splained to but it is a hero in her own right. This is a revolutionary action film on the gender front (it would be more so if it weren't for one that I'll get to that is similarly brilliant in this way) and also I loved the way the film's male stars and director dismissed and laughed at all claims that the gender structure was controversial or unexpected. More of it I say!

8. The Dressmaker

Now for some more Australian cinema (OK except for its star). In the 1960s, Tilly Dunnage (Kate Winslet) returns to the small Victorian town in which she grew up after being sent away as a child after being suspected of murdering another child. During her absence she has worked with a degree of success as a fashion designer internationally, whilst her mother, Molly (Judy Davis), has stayed put and become the local crazy drunken hermit. The people of the town see Tilly's return as a threat to them and their livelihoods- all except the poor family who have cared for Molly in Tilly's absence (including handsome young son of that family played by Liam Hemsworth) and the cross dressing police sergeant (Hugo Weaving). This is until Tilly designs a dress for the dowdy Gertrude (Sarah Snook) that gains Gertrude the attention of the boy she has a crush on, and then the whole town suddenly wants Tilly to design their outfits. Meanwhile Tilly is herself trying to figure out what happened all those years ago when she was accused of murder as she cannot remember the events of that day. This film has the rare distinction of being directed by, co-written by, based on a book by, and mainly starring women. In a year where the lack of jobs for women in Hollywood has been repeatedly under the microscope, this film is the antithesis of that and thankfully it made some decent money at the domestic box office. As much as I loved the performances by Hemsworth, Weaving, Snook, and the cast of other myriad town's people, the film truly comes down to three things- Winslet, Davis, and fashion. Davis is outstanding as Molly and Winslet is flawless as Tilly right down to that rarity for international actors, doing a really solid Australian accent. The fashion is suitably glamorous and perfectly contrasts the stark rural Victorian vistas. I know many people found the film a little strange but that is likely because the ending is wee bit Shakespearean in scope. I have to say this is one of the many things I loved.

7. Inside Out

Riley has lived a peaceful and pleasant life with her parents in Minnesota, and her emotions have been right there helping her build happy memories. Her father then packs the family up and moves them to San Francisco when Riley is 11 and she is away from all that keeps her safe, and her emotions (Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear) struggle to help her cope. One day, Sadness touches a memory and gives Riley her first memory that isn't coloured mainly by Joy so Joy tries to keep Sadness away from any involvement in Riley's emotionally life but when Riley ends up crying in front of her new school class, a new memory that is core to Riley's identity is formed and it is coloured by Sadness. Joy tries to get rid of the memory but this results in her and Sadness being sucked out of the emotion's Headquarters and into the other parts of Riley's brain. As Joy and Sadness try to get back to Headquarters, Disgust, Anger and Fear are driving Riley's emotional life and everything is going haywire. This is Pixar tackling a very heavy topic but in a way that kids might not scared of. Essentially Inside Out is a film about a pre-teen who is suffering from pretty severe depression. This sounds like I didn't like it but this is where the brilliance of the film lies. Children getting an understanding of depression and mental illness at an early age is a step in the right direction for removing the social misunderstandings and stigmas associated with mental illness, and this film does it with such a deft hand that it would be easy for a parent to refer back to if a child or someone they knew was suffering from depression. It also has brilliant vocal acting and animation but the reason this one need to be remembered is its themes. I applaud the Pixar team for going there in a way that will not make children uncomfortable or too scared.

6. Still Alice

Dr Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) starts having memory lapses. When she sees her doctor, she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. As the disease rapidly progresses, she forgets larger and larger things up to and including at one point, the identity of her daughter and she makes plans to commit suicide before it gets too bad. There is a reason that Julianne Moore won pretty much every award under the sun for her performance in this film as she is amazing. This is very good film on most fronts (Alec Baldwin as John Howland is also particularly good) but without Moore's performance the core of the film would be gone. She holds the film together and she does it flawlessly, so flawlessly in fact that this film was almost higher in my countdown.


5. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is a failing actor who was once famous for playing a superhero, Birdman, and he is now trying to regain his fame and change his public perception by appearing in an off Broadway play which he is also directing and wrote. Riggan hears the voice of Birdman following him and critiquing him as he seeks to stage the play with a disfunctional group of actors including his current girlfriend with the help of his assistant who is both a recovering drug addict and his daughter from his former marriage. There is a lot that has been said about this film and I agree with all of it. It was without doubt a worthy best picture receipt. The performances by all involved are outstanding especially those of Keaton who is paying his Batman dues, Emma Stone (as Riggan's daughter), and Edward Norton (as one of the actors in the play). The direction is masterful and the idea of shooting the film as one continuous take drags the viewers into the action and carries them through it. Finally it is worth mentioning the film's amazing soundtrack which is considering it is only drums is very effective. From a standard of film quality it was the best film of the year, but I did enjoy three of the four I've ranked above it more and feel the fourth is too important to be ignored.

4. Ex Machina

In the not too distant future, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a programmer at Bluebook (think something between google and Facebook). He mysteriously wins an opportunity to spend a week with the company's genius founder and CEO, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), at his remote home. Caleb is unsure of why he has won or what this prize entitles but when he arrives, it turns out that Nathan has selected him to form the Turing test (yes Turing as in Alan Turing from The Imitation Game- it is a test for Artificial Intelligence) on an A.I. he has created. Caleb soon meets the A.I., Ava (Alicia Vikander), and then he spends his days talking with Ava, and his nights drinking with the more than mildly obnoxious Nathan whilst the only other member of the house, Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), acts as Nathan's mute servant/sex slave. Caleb's days with Ava seem weirdly idyllic but it is sketchy acts are afoot in the house. This film explores so many things- the nature of life, the nature of humanity, the prospect of A.I., ideas about uses and abuses of technology, ideas of gender, and ideas of power- and it does this brilliantly. Gleeson (as I said I was getting to Brendon Gleeson's son), Isaac, and Vikander have all had AMAZING break out years in 2015- yes Gleeson was in the Harry Potter films but in a very minor role, and Isaac has been around for a few years (I was first impressed by him in Balibo back in 2009) and got great reviews for his role in Inside Llewyn Davis, but this year was something else again for all three of them (I might not be done with the men yet on this countdown and I also loved Vikander in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. which was some delightful guilty pleasure viewing). This is the directorial debut for Alex Garland who wrote The Beach (a novel that first made me want to travel and then by its conclusion terrified me to ever go out my front door again) and the scripts for 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Never Let Me Go, and it is very solid. The script, also the work of Garland, is very smart, and I hope the script and quality of the direction are the sign of more good films to come from Garland. This is what you want from serious sci-fi thriller- a smart script, deftly handled direction, and some amazing performances as Gleeson perfects Caleb's every man wounded puppy naivete, Isaac Nathan's odd combination of charisma and repulsion, and Vikander (hers is I think the strongest performance and considering how much I'm loving Oscar Isaac's work right now that is saying something) Ava's knowing but unknowing innocence (or is that non innocence?). I'm hoping that 2016 brings much more from the three leads in this film, particularly keen to see Vikander in The Danish Girl, and Isaac in X-Men: Apocalypse (not sure what Gleeson actually has lined up for this year but hopefully it is brilliant). Final word on this film goes to the fact it has the most brilliant dance sequence on screen this year performed by Isaac and Mizuno (she is a former ballet dancer making her film debut and she is effective if silent in her small number of scenes). So here that is:

 3. The Hunting Ground

I saw a few terrifying documentaries this year and this one counts as both the most scary and the most important. This film focus on the rape culture on American college campuses and the ways in which victim blaming is par for the course as colleges, college sporting teams, and fraternities fight and pay to hide all rape accusations. As someone who has spent her entire life in or around universities campuses in Australia, this was to say this least scary stuff. The statistics on the rape culture at American colleges are ridiculous and the money that is funneling into making rape accusations disappear is astronomical. The film confirmed my view that fraternities are truly one of the circles of hell, and that a college system that values the revenue stream of its sporting teams over the safety of its students (not just female students because as this film does make clear and as people should know, rape isn't something that only happens to women even though women are the bulk of the victims of this abhorrent crime) is heinously evil. As with all documentaries there are biases involved and some people have attacked the filmmakers as if this is unique to this film, but the fact remains one rape anywhere ever is too many, and any power structure that enables rapists and humiliates victims needs to be destroyed. Scarily for the US tertiary education system, the filmmakers of this documentary were sued by multiple colleges and associated organisations before it was even in distribution and none of the current employees of any institutions were willing to appear on camera- in contrast to their last documentary about rape culture in the US military where the Pentagon and other high level agencies opened their doors to that film's scrutiny, no-one was sued for what the film portrayed, and in fact it lead to government reforms that will make the military a safer place to work. I cannot stress enough how important this film is. Rape culture is rampant anywhere young vulnerable people congregate and tertiary institutions are internationally a prime place for rapes and sexual assaults to occur. The US with its special brand moneyed interests may be particularly awful (if you want to have your skin crawl, look at any of the sites or comment boards that question the film's depiction of particular scenarios or statistics- I've not seen such vitriol leveled at a documentary that wasn't by Michael Moore and when you consider the topic of the film, yikes is all I can say) but this is a film that law makers and tertiary institution employees need to see regardless of where they are. The film has not had a wide distribution anywhere (again I saw it at the Sydney Film Festival) but I expect that it will be screened on TV and available on DVD here soon.

2. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Greg (Thomas Mann), a 17 year old who has worked hard to develop bland surface level relationships with his classmates, is told by his parents to befriend Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a girl in his year at school who has been recently diagnosed with leukemia. Both teens do not want this friendship which has been engineered by their parents but soon enough they start talking a genuine friendship starts to develop. Greg soon introduces Rachel to his "associate" Earl (RJ Cyler)- when Rachel later asks Earl about being Greg's "associate", Earl confirms that they are friends but Greg doesn't do friendship. Rachel soon discovers that Greg and Earl make awful parody films together, and the films help her cope with her illness. At the suggestion of a girl he has a crush at school, Greg with the assistance of Earl starts to make a film for Rachel. I don't think most people would rank this film as highly as I did but I just loved it. It is endearing, it is funny, and obviously it is sad. The performances by the three young leads are delightfully unaffected and they got some solid support from the rest of the cast, young and older (I particularly loved Nick Offerman as Greg's Dad and Molly Shannon as Rachel's Mum). Now the teen with cancer film (or anyone with cancer film actual) is becoming a bit of a trope but there is something here that is stronger than the others and that is the combination of humour in the face of death with honesty about death, along with a very reduced level of sap (when compared to say last year's The Fault in Our Stars which was good but just a heart string tugger without pause). Also one of this film strongest points is that it isn't a teen romance and in fact romance takes a backseat to teens developing healthy relationships with adults (be that parents or teachers- Jon Bernthal is quite good as Greg's history teacher) but most importantly to a quest for genuine friendship between the three main characters. It is a film about the hard things in life but it is the core of friendship instead of romance that reduces the sap, made it a healthier film for teens, and made me love it all the more. Also I envy the people who got to think up Greg and Earl's punny film titles- my favourites were Sockwork Orange and A Box of Tulips Now.


And now for my number one film of 2015....

Wait for it...

Actually you didn't need to wait as you can probably guess...

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Have you seen it yet? It was my actual last film of 2015 (but wasn't seeing it for the first time that day) and I know most people have seen it but I will try for the sake of the small number of people who haven't seen it to give a spoiler free synopsis. It has been 30 years since the fall of the Empire and in its place, the First Order, a Nazi-like regime with ties to the dark side, has arisen to stop the efforts of the new Republic. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has gone missing and the Republic sponsored, First Order fighting Resistance led by his sister, Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), is looking for him. Leia sends her best pilot, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), to Jakku to retrieve information that will hopeful lead to Luke. Unfortunately Poe is captured by the First Order led by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), but fortunately before this happens he is able to store the information in his loyal droid, BB-8, and send him rolling away from the chaos and destruction of the First Order in hopes that they can reunite later. Aboard the First Order's ship, Poe is tortured by Kylo Ren until he is rescued by FN-2187 (John Boyega), a shell shocked stormtrooper quickly renamed Finn by Poe, and they make an escape back to Jakku in hopes of finding BB-8 only to be shoot down and for Finn to assume after the crash that he is the sole survivor and Poe has died. Meanwhile back on Jakku, a lonely young scavenger, Rey (Daisy Ridley), who is struggling to make ends meet runs into BB-8 and befriends him. Soon enough they connect with Finn and the three of them are fleeing for their lives on the way to the Resistance's base.

To start all I can say is...thank you J. J. Abrams...thank you so much! I don't remember a time when I didn't love the original Star Wars films and The Empire Strikes Back is one of my all time favourite films, so to say the pressure was high on this film was an understatement in the extreme. I remember when I was at Uni going along to midnight screenings of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith with friends, and all of us leaving with that slightly sick taste that the prequels left in the mouths of long term fans of the franchise (Revenge of the Sith isn't actual that bad but when you get lumped with Phantom Menace and especially with Attack of the Clones it doesn't do you any favours). The prequels were too heavy handed with the CSI, too heavy handed with the complexities of the Galactic Senate, too heavy handed with making the Force itself too complex, the scripts dragged, and the acting...don't get me started on the acting by the two leads and I'm normally a big fan of Natalie Portman. I'm not going to attack Jar Jar here as he is an easy target but he was the symptom not the disease in the prequels. So I was cautious when I bought my midnight screening ticket for The Force Awakens and I said going in that I set the bar Attack of the Clones low and if it exceeded this I would be OK. When I walked out of the film, I was shocked to find that I would have placed it slightly below if not on par with aspects of the original trilogy. My long held love of the work of J. J. Abrams had once again paid dividends and the hand of Disney was not as powerful as I had feared. So thank you again J. J. Abrams, and weirdly thank you George Lucas for finally completely giving up the reigns (now if you can go back and remove your edits from the original films, I'll finally completely forgive you for all the mess you did to your biggest legacy in the late 1990s/early 2000s). 

So what did I love about The Force Awakens? It would be harder to say what I didn't love as that amounts to pretty much nothing- the giant hologram of the First Order leader bugged me a bit so that is my one negative for you and it is minuscule. I loved seeing so many of the original cast back again and it appears enjoying the ride. I loved the pathos of the Han Solo/Leia relationship after 30 years. Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford's performances near broke my heart as the older version of these characters whose romance we all rooted for in the original films, and who with great degree of subtlety (which wasn't Ford's strong suit back in the originals but if you see Age of Adeline, a film I sadly didn't have space for in this countdown, is something he clearly can do nowadays) bring a high degree of a realism to a couple who are separated by tragedy (sorry unavoidable spoiler) but still deeply love each other in the midst of the high stakes world, space cowboy world of Star Wars. I felt I was going to miss my two old favourite characters from the original series (and technically the prequels too) as they are long since dead in the world of the film (and one of the actors is too) but low and behold voice cameos by both Obi Wan and Yoda! Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, and Kenny Baker who have spent SO long now in costume as Chewie, C3PO, and R2D2 respectively that they deserve medals and are still delivering on these roles. Also good to see many of the minor characters from the original films pop up in unobtrusive ways that just enhanced the fan experience without detracting from the first timer experience.

What of the new cast members? Oscar Isaac's charisma as Poe could have risked leaving everyone in its wake- it was so strong it changed the script after all. The adorable but not to the point of cloying ewok level adorable nature of BB-8 could have stolen the show. Adam Driver nailing the combination of internal conflict, anger issues, parental issues, and dark side leanings as Kylo Ren could have made us all want to don black masks and cloaks, and sulk in the shadows. Lupita Nyoung'O's quality voice work as Maz Kanata which aged her many years could have made us forget Yoda. BUT the thing is none of this happens! When everyone could steal the scene, it turns out no-one does (well Oscar Isaac still almost manages it in his scenes) and everyone ups their game, and the newer talents on the block rise to the occasion. When I say newer I don't mean the actors I just listed but instead I mean the two with the least credits to their names who are tasked with being the core of the film- John Boyega and Daisy Ridley. Unlike pretty much all of their cast mates, I had seen these actors in absolute nothing before The Force Awakens, and being the core of a Star Wars film is a heavy weight to be given for two actors whose previous roles were so very minor (both mainly have experience from guest spots on UK TV shows). Boyega and Ridley managed to make their characters the believable glue at the heart of the film, and to give Rey and Finn real emotion and real chemistry both with each other and with the other characters (I suspect that there will be a romance between Rey and Finn in the future films and though that would break some boundaries for Star Wars land as a mixed race couple but I feel the strongest potential chemistry was the bigger boundary breaking chemistry between Finn and Poe...sadly I doubt anyone but the denizens of tumblr will go there). Also a good word needs to be put in for the supports especially Domhnall Gleeson (I did say he got another mention) and Gwendolen Christie as the non force enabled First Order buddy cop to Kylo Ren, and a stormtrooper general respectively.

Finally the two things that I'm going to gush about and you can guess the first one...

The gender politics! Oh my goodness! I have long felt a bit weird that I love the Star Wars films so much when, even though Leia was an amazing role model of young girls, the cast otherwise just wall to wall white blokes for the most part (Lando is pretty much token), and that is without mentioning the slave bikini (that said Leia is can still kill Jabba the Hutt even in a slave bikini so what of it!). The Force Awakens turns it all on its head and goes even further. The "princess" that can't rescue "herself", Poe! The person who need to have everything explained four times (normally a woman in sci-fi/action films), Finn! The person who cries the most, Kylo Ren! Whereas Leia is now a general who has thrown off all the associated silliness of being a princess, and Phasma (Gwendolen Christie's character) has earned herself the role of general along with a shiny chrome outfit. In fact, Phasma was original written as a man but then they decided to ignore gender in casting. And all of this is before we get to Rey. Rey is essentially all of three main characters of the original series combined- the lost orphan on a dessert planet (Luke), the woman with power that society might limit (Leia), and the sassy natural pilot (Han)- and that is without spoilers as it is all in the trailer. From Rey's first introduction with her face covered in close up to make her appear to possibly be an androgynous man, to her donning of a pilot's helmet, to her saving of BB-8 from another scavenger, to her insistence of running without Finn's help all say loud and clear that traditional gender roles are not what defines our favourite galaxy far, far away. Much of same could be said of the race politics as instead of wall to wall white guys, you have a black man (John Boyega as Finn) and a Latin American man (Oscar Isaac as Poe) as two of the heroes, while new white male leads are evil (Adam Driver and Domhnall Gleeson). There is more when you look at the background casting which is super diverse in both gender and race- if you have seen the film, because spoilers, check out www.screencrush.com/star-wars-diversity-casting for interesting comments on this. Disney may have screwed up the toy marketing (there are very limited numbers of Rey toys) but I feel little girls seeing this film will definitely walk away knowing that they can be a hero and that they have just as many rights as men to be whomever they want to be- also children who aren't white will be able to see the film and think the same things except replace the word "men" with the words "white people".

The last thing to gush on is the issue for a lot of people with this film. Many people have said it is too familiar. I will admit I agree it is very similar to A New Hope but I say this isn't an issue. In fact this is another brilliant thing about the film. After the prequels and George Lucas messing with the originals, we all need a brain cleanse and to remember what we loved about Star Wars in the first place. This is just that. It is effectively cinematic comfort food and that makes it perfect for the fan who has felt let down by the recent efforts in the series, the child who is being introduced for the first time, and just for holiday viewing in general. J. J. Abrams left just enough questions to keep you going without overwhelming the viewer or bogging them down in the details. Now that we all have our heads on straight again, we can prepare for hopefully more adventurous fare in Episodes VIII and IX, and considering they are scripted by (and Episode VIII is also directed by) Rian Johnson I doubt they will have the same issue. For those not familiar with Rian Johnson's work, I strong recommend you take time to watch Looper and Brick before the next Star Wars episode, and I'll also let you know that you may be familiar with some of his work as he directed a small number of Breaking Bad episodes too. If you want to discuss my theories on a few mysteries from The Force Awakens, I wouldn't discuss them here because of spoilers but chat to me in person or elsewhere online as currently I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with my unique wacky (and likely untrue) theory on the biggest one of them.

So that is all on The Force Awakens (I did write much more than I expected). I've seen it three times so far (which is the most times I've seen a film in a long while) and if you need a buddy to see it with I will more than happily see it again as obviously I love it and also because I'm deeply hoping that this FINALLY is the film to knock one of my least favourite films of all time off the top of the list of highest grossing films (the un-adjusted for inflation list that is as I do love me some Gone with the Wind which is the top of the adjusted list). That's right Avatar, hopefully your awful reign will soon be OVER!!! The Force Awakens will likely take the number 4 of all time spot by the end of the week and as it hasn't opened in China yet. Even conservative estimates are saying it will almost certainly knock Titanic out of number 2 by the end of its run but the big question is Avatar, so go out and help prove that humanity does have better taste in films than the blue cat people of Avatar!

So those were the best films of 2015 in my opinion.

What of the worst? For the first time in a few years, I don't have a Peter Jackson version of The Hobbit to hand that title to. This year had some tragic disappointments. I felt really let down by Jurassic World as the trailers had looked so good but it had nowhere near the intelligence of Jurassic Park and slightly questionable gender politics. That said, it was an OK action film if you forgot Jurassic Park existed- but it definitely wasn't great. I was also really disappointed by Crimson Peak as the trailers looked good and the cast was all actors I love but it couldn't decide what kind of film it wanted to be and it just suffered because of that and because it was highly predictable for a ghost or mystery house film. That said, despite this it had good performances (especially Jessica Chastain who deserved a better film) so you couldn't write it off it completely even if it wasn't great. Neither of these were my least favourite film of 2015. My least favourite film goes to...

Focus

All style and absolutely zero substance. The script was awful, the chemistry between the leads near non existent, and the pacing tedious (a crime and a half in a con film). As a fan of con films, Will Smith, and Margot Robbie (I really looking forward to both of them in Suicide Squad), this is one large question of why isn't this better. It missed every mark.

Just to cleanse your mind if you watched the Focus trailer, I'll finish with this....

 

See there is a lot to be said for the familiarity of The Force Awakens as a palate cleanser..